UA Grand Prairie 10

CC/DVS-Closed Captions & Descriptive Video Service 10:00 PM

CC/DVS-Closed Captions & Descriptive Video Service (1:35 PM), (4:15 PM), 7:15 PM, 7:35 PM

James Franco rivals his calamitous performance as Oscar host in Disney and director Sam Raimi's gargantuan attempt to turn L. Frank Baum's children's novels-- and one of the most beloved of all Hollywood movies-- into a wellspring of fresh... More »

James Franco rivals his calamitous performance as Oscar host in Disney and director Sam Raimi's gargantuan attempt to turn L. Frank Baum's children's novels-- and one of the most beloved of all Hollywood movies-- into a wellspring of fresh product tie-ins and theme-park rides. A wildly inventive, unpredictable actor when he wants to be, Franco is all wrong for the role of a huckster sideshow magician who finds himself somewhere over the rainbow, trying to convince the good people of a besieged kingdom that he's their prophesied savior. Reading his lines with the sneering warble of the young Dennis Hopper and flashing a strained smile that's more disturbing than dashing, Franco may be the least convincing flimflam man in movie history, more young Norman Bates than the man who would be Oz. He's surrounded by a Day-Glo freak-out of special effects and two very resourceful actresses, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams, reduced to glowering at each other and unleashing bursts of electromagnetic fury from their fingertips. If only the movie could run off with Mila Kunis's radiant Theodora, a nominal "good” witch whose passions rage louder than most, who gives her heart too willingly and, who, when betrayed, turns positively green with jealousy. She's by far the most dimensional being in this flaccid 3-D affair. « Less

CC/DVS-Closed Captions & Descriptive Video Service (1:15 PM), (4:15 PM)

Justin Zackham's vile The Big Wedding opens with a foray back through silver-screen history. When Ellie (Diane Keaton) walks in on her ex-husband, Don (Robert De Niro), as he moves to perform kitchen-counter cunnilingus on his new girlfriend,... More »

Justin Zackham's vile The Big Wedding opens with a foray back through silver-screen history. When Ellie (Diane Keaton) walks in on her ex-husband, Don (Robert De Niro), as he moves to perform kitchen-counter cunnilingus on his new girlfriend, Bebe (Susan Sarandon), it's possible to see aging legends of the cinema imagined suddenly together, as if Annie Hall and Travis Bickle and Louise Sawyer one day found themselves playing out some producer's laziest scene ideas. There is, in other words, a lot of history in The Big Wedding-- a history the film not so much squanders as utterly defaces. The wedding here is an excuse to draw together cardboard characters whose prefab arcs end as obviously as they begin. The moment we're introduced to virginal doctor Jared (Topher Grace), we can be assured that we'll see him pop his proverbial cherry by film's end. Same goes for elder sister Lyla (Katherine Heigl), whose pained journey from barren womb to baby bump is too predictable to bother spoiler-warning. All this is held together by casual racism. The son about to be married is Alejandro (Ben Barnes), adopted as a child from Colombia. His biological mother, the devoutly religious Madonna (Patricia Rae), will be visiting for the ceremony, joined by Nuria (Ana Ayora), Alejandro's biological sister, and together the two represent some of the most repugnant foreign stereotyping in years. The film divides these women-- the only non-white characters-- into a literal mother/whore dichotomy. Nuria is relegated to the demeaning role of an exotic Other only present to strip nude and seduce one of the white male leads. « Less

CC/DVS-Closed Captions & Descriptive Video Service (1:45 PM), 7:45 PM

There's a scene in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby in which Leonardo DiCaprio's hyperrich, super-awkward Jay Gatsby takes it upon himself to redecorate the bachelor pad of his less-prosperous friend, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire). Gatsby's old... More »

There's a scene in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby in which Leonardo DiCaprio's hyperrich, super-awkward Jay Gatsby takes it upon himself to redecorate the bachelor pad of his less-prosperous friend, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire). Gatsby's old flame, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), is coming to Nick’s for tea. Eager to impress her, Gatsby has brought in boughs draped with explosive white flowers, macaroons in every color of the paintbox, and tiered cakes straight out of Marie Antoinette's court. "You think it's too much?" he asks Nick. Nick offers the polite answer: "I think it's what you want." The Great Gatsby is both too much and what Luhrmann wants, less a movie version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel than a movie version of Jay Gatsby himself. It’s polished to a handsome sheen and possesses no class or taste beyond the kind you can buy. And those are the reasons to love it. The performers often look lost, but the movie moves, breathes, and has color on its side. Though Fitzgerald couldn't have known it, he wrote a scene tailor-made for 3-D, the one in which Gatsby rummages through his collection of brilliantly colored silk shirts and tosses one after another toward his lady love. In Luhrmann's vision, they float down around Daisy like polychrome snowflakes. It's all so fake. It should all be so horrible. But really, all Luhrmann has done is build a crazy art deco Taj Mahal to the glory of The Great Gatsby. Like Gatsby, Luhrmann is a faker but not a phony. Fitzgerald knew the difference. Can we see it, too? « Less

CC/DVS-Closed Captions & Descriptive Video Service (1:30 PM), (4:30 PM), 7:30 PM

There's a scene in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby in which Leonardo DiCaprio's hyperrich, super-awkward Jay Gatsby takes it upon himself to redecorate the bachelor pad of his less-prosperous friend, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire). Gatsby's old... More »

There's a scene in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby in which Leonardo DiCaprio's hyperrich, super-awkward Jay Gatsby takes it upon himself to redecorate the bachelor pad of his less-prosperous friend, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire). Gatsby's old flame, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), is coming to Nick’s for tea. Eager to impress her, Gatsby has brought in boughs draped with explosive white flowers, macaroons in every color of the paintbox, and tiered cakes straight out of Marie Antoinette's court. "You think it's too much?" he asks Nick. Nick offers the polite answer: "I think it's what you want." The Great Gatsby is both too much and what Luhrmann wants, less a movie version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel than a movie version of Jay Gatsby himself. It’s polished to a handsome sheen and possesses no class or taste beyond the kind you can buy. And those are the reasons to love it. The performers often look lost, but the movie moves, breathes, and has color on its side. Though Fitzgerald couldn't have known it, he wrote a scene tailor-made for 3-D, the one in which Gatsby rummages through his collection of brilliantly colored silk shirts and tosses one after another toward his lady love. In Luhrmann's vision, they float down around Daisy like polychrome snowflakes. It's all so fake. It should all be so horrible. But really, all Luhrmann has done is build a crazy art deco Taj Mahal to the glory of The Great Gatsby. Like Gatsby, Luhrmann is a faker but not a phony. Fitzgerald knew the difference. Can we see it, too? « Less

CC/DVS-Closed Captions & Descriptive Vid;Real D 3D (1:00 PM), (4:00 PM), 7:00 PM

In this wittily gory remake of the revered 1981 debut of Oz the Great and Powerful filmmaker Sam Raimi, five college-age friends go to the ol' cabin in the woods where the nerd of the group (Lou Taylor Pucci) commits a common camping mistake:... More »

In this wittily gory remake of the revered 1981 debut of Oz the Great and Powerful filmmaker Sam Raimi, five college-age friends go to the ol' cabin in the woods where the nerd of the group (Lou Taylor Pucci) commits a common camping mistake: reading aloud from a book of the dead. Cue an invisible demon that uses tree limbs to rape and thereby possess Mia (Jane Levy), who returns to the cabin eager to slice and dice her friends, as well as her brother (Shiloh Fernandez). In a virtuoso feature debut, Uruguayan-born writer-director Fede Alvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues honor the motifs of the original, from the camera rushing pell-mell through the woods to signal the demon's arrival, to the deployment of a chainsaw in the final showdown. But the plotting as a whole feels fresh, as does the emphasis on women strong enough to defend themselves. Alvarez also honors Raimi, who co-produced this remake, in another key way: The film's special effects are created with old-fashioned prosthetics and buckets of blood, which lend a horrifically tactile reality to such moments as when the possessed Mia slices her own tongue in two. Dare ya not to look. « Less

CC/DVS-Closed Captions & Descriptive Video Service (1:50 PM), (4:50 PM), 7:50 PM

It's not enough to call this the rare franchise action movie to bring the goods; it's the even rarer one whose creators seem to understand what the goods even are. Your ticket should come with a fight card: squad versus squad, bruiser versus... More »

It's not enough to call this the rare franchise action movie to bring the goods; it's the even rarer one whose creators seem to understand what the goods even are. Your ticket should come with a fight card: squad versus squad, bruiser versus bruiser, ninja versus ninja, second-string ninja versus ancient ninja training lady, jeep-tank versus tank-jeep, bullets versus throwing stars, everyone versus Walton Goggins, dumb pleasures versus your higher brain function. Ninjas swing and zipline through Himalayan peaks, giving dizzier Spider-Man thrills than The Amazing Spider-Man bothered to. A three-soldier escape from deep in a well is more satisfying-- and abbreviated!-- than Bruce Wayne's ponderous pit-climb last summer. Charming Dwayne Johnson declaims Jay-Z as scripture to pump up his Joes before a mission; he's so commanding that nothing pump-uppable in you is likely to languish un-pumped. In short, if you think it's possible you might have a good time at a picture named G.I. Joe: Retaliation, you will almost certainly have a good time, though it's still dumb as catbutt. The script, from Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, is touched with absurdist comedy and some of-the-moment wingnuttery. Here's a movie in which gun-toting lugs become convinced the president is an imposter who they have to take out—not really something we should be encouraging so soon after 2016: Obama's America. But director Jon M. Chu comes to dudes-fighting filmmaking from the most welcome of backgrounds: directing dance. When his characters battle, we see the bodies of accomplished physical performers moving together through space, mostly in shots that the eye can actually track. « Less

CC/DVS-Closed Captions & Descriptive Video Service (1:20 PM), (4:20 PM), 7:20 PM

RealD 3D (1:05 PM), (4:05 PM), (4:35 PM), 7:05 PM

CC/DVS-Closed Captions & Descriptive Vide;RealD 3D (1:10 PM), (4:10 PM), 7:10 PM

The first of this year's dueling Die Hard in the White House opuses (to be followed in June by Roland "Independence Day" Emmerich's White House Down) begins with a slo-mo Old Glory and the first horns and snare drums of composer Trevor Morris's... More »

The first of this year's dueling Die Hard in the White House opuses (to be followed in June by Roland "Independence Day" Emmerich's White House Down) begins with a slo-mo Old Glory and the first horns and snare drums of composer Trevor Morris's John-Williams-on-steroids score—and, well, things get a lot more "America! Fuck yeah!" from there. Directed at a jingoistic fever pitch by Training Day's Antoine Fuqua, Olympus Has Fallen quickly hurtles through the bare minimum of exposition—a square-jawed, newly widowed POTUS (Aaron Eckhart); a brooding ex–Secret Service hotshot (Gerard Butler) who blames himself for the First Lady's death-- before unleashing a small army of North Korean baddies on Pennsylvania Avenue's most desirable address. What follows is an all-you-can-eat buffet of shlock, from the retro, Robocop-era visual effects to the Delta Force–worthy parade of Oscar winners and nominees in peril (Secretary of State Melissa Leo, Speaker of the House Morgan Freeman, Secret Service Director Angela Bassett, Army Chief of Staff Robert Forster) to the utterly shameless 9/11 imagery (including Beltway tourists crushed by chunks of an imploding Washington Monument). A Red Dawn for the Tea Party era, Olympus Has Fallen is pretty ridiculously entertaining-- or at least entertainingly ridiculous-- for long stretches, dulled only by the realization that there are many parts of the country where this will play as less than total farce. « Less

CC/DVS-Closed Captions & Descriptive Video Service (1:40 PM), (4:40 PM), 7:40 PM